Don't Forget to Exhale Too
by anthrop
Summary: An essay written in English on how my high school marching band won our regional championships for the fifth time consecutively. I liked it. Here you go.


Title: Don't Forget to Exhale Too

Subject: Marching Band

Quiet. Everything muted, a dull roar lost in the hammering of my heartbeats, in the harsh whistling of cold air pushing through my throat. Adrenaline surging in my bloodstream as if I'm running for my life. But I'm not. I'm marching down an asphalt hill in line with a hundred other people. We're all silent, our voices taboo and lodged in our chests anyway. The only sounds we make are the inevitable kind; the clomping of our identical black shoes, the resistance and flow of identical uniforms, the whistle of our identical hitching breaths. Shrouded in darkness, the field and all its blinding lights still too far off to touch us. But the metals of our instruments still shine, casting strange reflections, a flailing half-light.

Halfway there some trips, swearing loudly. The mood lightens as a ghost of laughter passes down the twin lines, then snaps taut again in seconds. My stomach hurts. All the muscles in my abdomen are clenched too tight, caging my organs. It feels like I've swallowed a pound of lead. My fingers tremble, thrumming without sound against the yellow brass of my sousaphone. The weight of it is grinding against my shoulder and collar bone, bruising the skin, pinching nerves, numbing my hand. The trembling gets worse.

Our director floats by, startling me out of my barely controlled panic. His long coat swoops out behind him in the wind, and stupidly I realize I've been shivering for a while. It's cold. My breath blooms out, a white cloud obscuring my vision between eyeblinks. Goose bumps run up and down my skin in waves. I swallow, bypassing nervous and escalating into fear. Immediately I berate myself. Why am I so scared? Haven't I done this a hundred times before? So what if it's Championships? So what if our reputation rests on this one nine-minute performance? So what if our director would slaughter us like animals—not to mention our grades—if we didn't win this? So what?

I swallow another pound of lead.

Yeah. So what.

The other two sousaphones stop ahead of me and I lock my legs, just managing not to crash. At the back of the line the battery mutters half-heartedly, their drums and harnesses creaking like lightning strikes in our silence. I force my lungs to keep functioning, to get air in and out, my throat convulsing wildly. God, are we already there? My hips overexaggerate a turn to see beyond the polished curve of my bell. I squint, the bright lights burning my eyes. I see parents in red polos hauling backdrops towering twelve feet into the air across the artificial turf. The pit curves out across the rubber track, marimbas and chimes, a huge bass drum and all the rest of the equipment rolling on large wheels into place on the sidelines. I crack a wry joke and someone near me laughs. And then we're moving again, into the focus of fifteen thousand people, moving flesh-and-cloth colored dots filling every seat. I stare, panicking again, and I feel as if my eyes have been stapled open, frozen as I stare at the tiny figures moving high up in the judges' box. We hit the turf, and my body automatically shifts to perfect control. Everything still.

The whistle sounds. I only hear it because I expect it. I set, a gold and black-red shape interrupting the dark green of the fifty. I'm almost directly center of the field, and peoples' attention are always drawn to the center, especially when you're hauling a forty-five hunk of brass on one shoulder. The disembodied voice of a manrolls across the stadium from hanging speakers, telling the audience about us, our accomplishments, the story behind our show. All around the band is setting, the pagentry setting equipment, bodies everywhere, the motions and colors playing games with my eyes. I'm distracted, runnning on auto from setting a million times before. Feet shoulder-with apart, hips in, chest out, sousaphone in resting position. I watch the pit set, the crowd ripple and cheer. The tarp crackles behind me in a strong gust of wind. Every cell in me is poised for action and I'm terrified out of my mind.

The roar of the crowd swells and dims, then cuts out aruptly, as if I've suddenly gone deaf. I choke, my eyes darting to our drum major, a black shape, white gloves and a white slash across her chest. Crap, she's on the podium! How did I not notice? I adjust my beret one last time and set my arms. White fingers rise into a blue night sky. Every eye on her.

We start.

We finish.

Absolute stillness as the last echoes of music fade. The few seconds before the audience realizes we're done. Over a hundred chests heaving, sweat pouring down our faces, a complete oneness. I can't stop smiling. Everything hurts, is stretched or locked or completely worn out, but I can't stop smiling. None of us can. So easy. It had been so _easy_. Every note, every step, every visual, everything! In the air is a complete sense of victory. The drum major is laughing through the searing pain of her arms, and in the stand the director and his staff are talking excitedly, big grins on every face. The lead snare rattles out and starts the click. We march off the field, left right, left right, completely in step. Out of the stadium and back in the darkness I can finally switch shoulders. Something pops out and back into place and feels great. We all start laughing.

So, did we win.

Yeah, we did.


End file.
